Joy To Come

Literary And Cultural Essays

What do Flaubert’s letters, Whitman’s poems, and Lampedusa’s The Leopard have in common?

At first glance, not much, but in Joy To Come, they are revealed to have in common the mind of literary critic Jim Levy.

In his preface, Levy writes: “I believe that literature is about the text, the author and the reader. The interaction and eventual blend of the three constitute the experience.”

As in the works of Jorge Luis Borges, Levy’s essays fold fact and fiction into a seamless unity. The factual backgrounds are meticulously researched, but Spinoza never spent eleven months in Brazil, Rolling Stone never interviewed Rimbaud, and Abd al Rahman III never rose from the dead to describe the happiest fourteen days of his life. These thirteen essays, unique in their approach to literature, also explore Chamfort’s aphorisms, Orhan Pamuk’s Nobel Prize lecture, Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano, Flaubert’s letters and the incredible range of Whitman’s poetry.